CF 135: Adjusting Confirmed Disc Herniations and Bulges

Today we’re going to talk about Adjusting Confirmed Disc Herniations and Bulges. Is this a good idea or a bad idea and what does the research have to say about it?

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our Facebook page, 
• Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #135

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about the impact sleep can have on cardiovascular issues and we talked about what the profession of chiropractic can learn from the podiatry profession. There was a great discussion there I believe and great lessons we can learn. Why did podiatrists start at about the same time as chirorpactic but they’re so much more recognized, respected, and integrated compared to the chirorpactic profession? We talked about it. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

Keepin on keepin on folks. That’s it. Staying in business. One day at a time. So far so good. I hope you found some use out of our discussion a couple episodes back about tactics myself and others are using to get those patients returning back to your office. I think I was able to share some valuable info in that regard. 

Dr. Blake Bennett posted in our private Facebook group saying, “We mailed a thousand letters to patients who were in in the past couple years and a couple weeks later we mailed another 500 postcards to patients who haven’t been in longer than that. Email every 2-3 weeks to those on the list. He says the response was great and June was a good month.”

Providing value and giving back. Thank you Dr. Bennett. I know others in need appreciate your advice as do I. 

Let’s get on with the reason for the topic today. I saw a post not long ago in the Forward Thinking Chiropractic Alliance where a colleague was asking if it’s OK to adjust segments where there is a confirmed disc herniation or bulge. It was refreshing to see a resounding YES from all of my colleagues. 

My answer was “Yes” as well. I’ve been through this from the back end though and I’ll share some of that story with you. It’s a story I’m not happy about, I’m not proud of, and I’m not happy revisiting. It was a hard time in my life to be honest. But, it’s part of my story regardless so here goes.

Many moons ago I treated A LOT of personal injury cases. We all know some of those patients are better than others. This was not one of the great patients but she was fine. No big issues. She had a disc injury and I diagnosed it appropriately I’ll have you know. 

Now something to know about me; I’m all about gentle motion. I don’t like it when someone cranks my noggin around just looking for that crack sound. I’m not interested in that and I treat people the way I want to be treated. I’m very gentle, non-agressive, use little to zero rotation in the cervical area, and just won’t be rough with it. 

Same went for this lady. And, like so many other patients, she responded well. I tracked her from the beginning where she was having pain 75% of the time down to a much lower rating on the numeric rating scale and only about 25% of the time. She was happy, I was happy and all was gleeful in the land of daily practice. 

Until…..until her daughter attended an appointment with her one day. She came in with her just up in arms and actually screaming at me because I had the audacity to work on her mother when she had a disc herniation and clear mention of the disc herniation on her MRI report. 

I asked her if she’d ever been to a chiropractor before or knew anything about chiropractic. She had not. She knew nothing about what we do or why we do it. So, I tried to explain briefly and tell her how her mother was doing so much better and how she had improved, blah, blah, blah. Didn’t matter. She didn’t know anything but she knew enough to be straight up pissed the hell off that I’d ever work with her mother with that disc herniation. 

It made for an interesting day for sure. But not as interesting as the day I received notice from my state’s governing board that they had received a complaint on me from this patient. While it had this patient’s name on the complaint, it should have had the daughter’s name on it because the patient and I had a good relationship. 

So, no matter how good the notes were, no matter how well I tracked the improvement, guess what? I STILL had to hire an attorney to defend me to my own Board. Now, it’s important to understand that the Board isn’t here for us. They’re stated goal is to protect the interest of the public when it comes to chiropractors. Let’s be fair, they see the worst of the worst. Literally. They can, after some time, become a bit jaded and maybe even start to actually EXPECT the worst when they get a complaint. 

I literally could not believe I had to take two days off of work, fly to Austin, TX, get a hotel, and defend myself against something that was so black and white. But again, let’s be fair, the folks at the TBCE weren’t there. They didn’t witness what I saw. They didn’t see the happiness of the patient with her improvement. They weren’t there when we just did manual mobilization rather than agressive adjustments. I can’t blame them. It was the process and I had to go through it. Right or wrong. And trust me, if you’ve listened to this podcast long enough honesty is big with me. This was wrong. It should have never gotten beyond the initial complaint. But whatever. I went to Austin. 

Now, one of my colleagues and friends was on the enforcement committee and she asked me some straight forward questions with the attorney sitting there. I don’t know why the hell he was even there other than to collect a check because he didn’t say a damn thing or do a damn thing. 

This was before I went through a diplomate but after going through Croft’s Whiplash Biomechanics and Traumatology course. What I’m saying is I’m better today than I was back then but I was far from being a slacker back then. I answered all of the questions, walked out, and the attorney told me what a great job I did and then we waited. 

I ended up getting a warning but nothing on my record. No action taken against me. I was pissed then and am still pissed that I’d get a warning for anything at all. I didn’t deserve a warning. It wasn’t warranted because I didn’t do anything wrong. 

Now, the reason for that story for a couple of reasons. First, I want you to understand the value of documentation. Had I not had the documentation showing the improvement of this patient over her treatment, I would have been absolute toast based solely on the word of a patient’s daughter. A person that has never been to a chiropractor and knows nothing about the profession. That’s number one. So documentation people; don’t just document to remember what you did. Document to protect yourself and your staff. It sucks but you have to do it. 

The second reason I told that story is that this experience led me to start looking up research on discs and adjusting. Was I actually wrong and I just didn’t know it? I went searching for the answers because if I were to keep adjusting people, you damn well better believe that I’m going to be adjusting people with discs that many times are herniated or bulging. That’s either knowingly doing it and most times unknowingly doing it. 

Hell, we know that 60% of patients between the ages of 40 and 50 years old have disc findings that are completely asymptomatic. No pain at all. Still, when you’re adjusting a 40 - 50 year old, you have a 60% chance of adjusting someone with a bulge or herniation. So it made sense to me to protect myself from ever running into this crap again down the road. 

If I had those paper in front of me when I went in there to defend myself, maybe I don’t even get a warning. But, if someone is sitting on the enforcement and questioning concerning adjusting areas with disc issues, they need to be on top of that research as well. And they might have been. I don’t know. All of the folks at the TBCE have become well thought of friends and colleagues now that I’ve been active in the Texas Chiropractic Association for so many years. Not the case at the time though. I only knew one of them back then. Even though there’s been a turnover since this happened many moons ago, I’m still friends with even the new TBCE crew and they’re all highly respected and thought of by me. Good good people just trying to do a good job. 

Anyway, We’re going to go through some papers here for you so you can get a clear picture on this topic. 

Item #1

OK, Item #1 this week is called “Manipulation or microdiskectomy for sciatica? A prospective randomized clinical study” by McMorland, et. al. publshed in the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics in October of 2010(McMorland G 2010). 

Why They Did It

The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical efficacy of spinal manipulation against microdiskectomy in patients with sciatica secondary to lumbar disk herniation (LDH).

How They Did It

• 121 patients were in the study
• Patients had to have failed at least 3 months of nonoperative management like analgesics, lifestyle modification, physiotherapy, massage, or acupuncture. 
• They were randomized to either surgical microdiskectomy or standardized chiropractic spinal manipulation
• Patients could opt to crossover to the other treatment after 3 months

What They Found

Significant improvement in both treatment groups compared to baseline scores over time was observed in all outcome measures. After 1 year, follow-up intent-to-treat analysis did not reveal a difference in outcome based on the original treatment received

Wrap It Up

“Sixty percent of patients with sciatica who had failed other medical management benefited from spinal manipulation to the same degree as if they underwent surgical intervention. Of 40% left unsatisfied, subsequent surgical intervention confers excellent outcome. Patients with symptomatic LDH failing medical management should consider spinal manipulation followed by surgery if warranted.”

Who does this not make perfect sense to? Well….besides my patient’s daughter that is? Oh, and just about any medical physician you can find. I just don’t know how they haven’t latched onto this research yet. Honestly. 

Before we get to the next paper, I want to tell you a little about this new tool on the market called Drop Release. If you’re into IASTM also known as instrument assisted soft tissue manipulation, then it’s your new best friend. Heck if you’re just into getting more range of motion in your patients, then it’s your new best friend. 

Drop Release is a revolutionary tool that harnesses the body’s built-in protective systems to make muscles relax quickly and effectively.  This greatly reduces time needed for soft tissue treatment, leaving more time for other treatments per visit, or more patients per day.

It’s inventor, Dr. Chris Howson, from the great state state of North Dakota has is a listener and friend. He offered our listeners a great discount on his product. When you order, if you put in the code ‘HOTSTUFF’ all one word….as in hot stuff….coming up!! If you enter HOTSTUFF in the coupon code area, Dr. Howson will give you $50 off of your purchase. 

Go check Drop Release at droprelease.com and tell Dr. Howson I sent you.

Item #2

This is a great one here called “Outcomes From Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Confirmed Symptomatic Cervical Disk Herniation Patients Treated With High-Velocity, Low-Amplitude Spinal Manipulative Therapy: A Prospective Cohort Study With 3-Month Follow-Up” by Peterson et. al. published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in August of 2013(Peterson C 2013). 

Why They Did It

The purpose of this study was to investigate outcomes of patients with cervical radiculopathy from cervical disk herniation (CDH) who are treated with spinal manipulative therapy.

How They Did It

• 50 Adult Swiss patients with neck pain and dermatomal arm pain; sensory, motor, or reflex changes corresponding to the involved nerve root; and at least 1 positive orthopaedic test for cervical radiculopathy were included.
• Magnetic resonance imaging–confirmed CDH linked with symptoms was required.
• Baseline data included 2 pain numeric rating scales (NRSs), for neck and arm, and the Neck Disability Index (NDI). At 2 weeks, 1 month, and 3 months after initial consultation, patients were contacted by telephone, and the NDI, NRSs, and patient's global impression of change data were collected
• High-velocity, low-amplitude spinal manipulations were administered by experienced doctors of chiropractic.
• Acute vs subacute/chronic patients' NRSs and NDIs were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test.

What They Found

• At 2 weeks, 55.3% were “improved,” 68.9% at 1 month and 85.7% at 3 months.
• Statistically significant decreases in neck pain, arm pain, and NDI scores were noted at 1 and 3 months compared with baseline scores
• Of the subacute/chronic patients, 76.2% were improved at 3 months.

Wrap It Up

Most patients in this study, including subacute/chronic patients, with symptomatic magnetic resonance imaging–confirmed CDH treated with spinal manipulative therapy, reported significant improvement with no adverse events.

Item #3

This one is from Bergmann, et. al. and published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in 1998 called “Manipulative therapy in lower back pain with leg pain and neurological deficit.(Bergmann TF 1998)”

Why They Did It

To discuss a case of sciatica associated with lower back pain that originates in a disc. We discuss the use of manipulative therapy as a conservative approach and compare it with other conservative methods and with surgery.

How They Did It

• The patient suffered from lower back and left leg pain that had increased in severity over a 6-day period. There was decreased sensation in the dorsum of the left foot and toes. Computed tomography demonstrated the presence of a small, contained disc herniation.
• The patient was initially treated with ice followed by flexion-distraction therapy. This was used over the course of her first three visits. Once she was in less pain, side posture manipulation was added to her care. Nine treatments were required before she was released from care.

Wrap It Up

“We need a nonsurgical, conservative approach to treat lower back pain with sciatica as an alternative to and before beginning the more aggressive, and potentially hazardous, surgical treatment. There is some support for the idea that lumbar disc herniation with neurological deficit and radicular pain does not contraindicate the judicious use of manipulation. there is ample evidence to suggest that a course of conservative care, including spinal manipulation, should be completed before surgical consult is considered.”

Item #4

The last one we’ll cover here is called “Spinal manipulation in the treatment of patients with MRI-confirmed lumbar disc herniation and sacroiliac joint hypomobility: a quasi-experimental study” by Shokri et. al and published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies in May of 2018(Shokri E 2018).

Why They Did It

To investigate the effect of lumbar and sacroiliac joint (SIJ) manipulation on pain and functional disability in patients with lumbar disc herniation (LDH) concomitant with SIJ hypomobility.

How They Did It

• Twenty patients aged between 20 and 50 years with MRI-confirmed LDH who also had SIJ hypomobility participated in the trial in 2010.
• Patients who had sequestrated disc herniation were excluded
• All patients received five sessions of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) for the SIJ and lumbar spine during a 2-week period. 
• back and leg pain intensity and functional disability level were measured with a numerical rating scale (NRS) and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) at baseline, immediately after the 5th session, and 1 month after baseline.

What They Found

A significantly greater mean improvement in back and leg pain was observed in the 5th sessions and 1 month after SMT

Wrap It Up

Five sessions of lumbar and SIJ manipulation can potentially improve pain and functional disability in patients with MRI-confirmed LDH and concomitant SIJ hypomobility.

There are more but I don’t want this episode to be an hour long. If I have a patient with a hot disc, I don’t typically adjust on day one. We focus on getting the patient moving. We sit them on a theraball and have them move their hips in circles, front to back, side to side, figure eights, and whatever other way we can think of. Most have a direction of preference that is in trunk extenstion. If this is right for the patient, we will do extension bias exercises. 

We make sure they are keeping their low back nice and stiff, neutral, and strong in every movement they make. We make sure they know what position to sleep in. We stress the importance of not laying down and hoping it goes away. Rather than that, they really need to be walking and doing the exercises. If they have people that just underwent surgery walking the next day, then doesn’t that same concept make sense for discs? Well of course it does. They typically come back the next day with the pain reduced enough to be able to do some light mobilization on the low back. I am careful to not be agressive and to not put an extreme amount of rotation into the spine. We want movement but we also want the spine as straight, strong, and neurtal as possible. 

Make sure you have schooled them on this concept. Tell them to make sure they behave like they have a long flourescent light bulb taped to their back and their job is to not break it. If you can remove the triggers that caused the pain, it’ll go a long way toward their recovery. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Keep changing the world and our profession from your little corner of the world. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

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About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & VloggerBibliography

• Bergmann TF, J. B. (1998). "Manipulative therapy in lower back pain with leg pain and neurological deficit." J Manipulative Physiol Ther 21(4): 288-294.
• McMorland G (2010). "Manipulation or microdiskectomy for sciatica? A prospective randomized clinical study." J Manipulative Physiol Ther 33(8): 576-584.
• Peterson C, e. a. (2013). "Outcomes from magnetic resonance imaging — confirmed symptomatic cervical disk protrusion patients treated with high-velocity, low-amplitude spinal manipulative therapy: a prospective cohort study with 3-month follow-up." J Manipulative Physiol Ther 36(8): 461-467.
• Shokri E, K. F., Sinaei E, Ghafarinejad F, (2018). "Spinal manipulation in the treatment of patients with MRI-confirmed lumbar disc herniation and sacroiliac joint hypomobility: a quasi-experimental study." Chiropr Man Therap 26(16).

CF 133: Getting Patients Returning, Shoulder Impingement, Cervical Manipulation, & X-rays and Neurodegenerative Disease

Today we’re going to talk about getting your patients back in your office, we’ll talk about shoulder impingement, cervical manipulation research, and we’ll talk about low dose x-rays being the cause of neurodegenerative disease. 

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our Facebook page, 
• Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #133

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about giving, we talked about maintenance care, dry needling, and we also talked about vitalism. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

The last two episodes have had talk about vitalism and all of that. I got red in the face and gripey and some would even say…..disagreeable. 

None of that this week. Fun and positivity. I made the mistake of going back to recording the personal part of the podcast….this part of the podcast….two weeks in advance. Well, it bit me in the butt an episode or two back. I should know by now that that damn COVID’s going to change the program. Lol. I said it was looking good and numbers were great and by the time we get to air time, 2 weeks down the road, the roadmap was different and crap was firing up everywhere again. It sounded silly for it to be firing up everywhere and there I am on a fresh episode talking about how good it’s looking. Lol. So…..I’m not going to mention anything like that again. 

Besides, you guys are probably not in the mood to hear more about it anyway. Instead, I’ll tell you that I’m at about 81% of where I want to be. The least I want to see per week is about 180 appointments. Each week. 13 - 15 new patients per week. That’s the LEAST I want to see. 

As of this recording, last week I saw 146 and 15 patients. So, I’m not at 180 yet but I’m more comfortable with my new patient count. Let’s keep that rocking and the other numbers should take care of itself sooner than later. It’s a Monday afternoon and I have 120 on the books. That’s before Wednesday gets booked up, Thursday, and Friday. So, starting a Monday with 120 already booked for the week, that tells me we have a good chance at a continued recovery. 

What are your numbers looking like? Is your practice starting to get back to normal and stabilize? What are you doing to make sure your business survives this mess? I want to hear about it so I can share with our audience. If you’ll share with us on the Facebook page, in teh Facebook group, or by sending me an email at [email protected]…..I’ll make sure and share with the rest of our listeners. This can be an excellent way to help others that are struggling right now. 

Last week I talked about giving. Well, this is a great way to give back to your profession and colleagues that may not be doing as well as we are. 

I’ll start. 

I doubled down on Social Media

Instead of one post a day, we went to 3 per day and 4 per day on the weekends. 

We went from just talking about chiropractic to fun posts with a little bit of chiropractic here and there. About every 4th or 5th post. We want to entertain. I don’t know that anyone wants to be sold anything right now but, I don’t personally mind commercials or being interrupted if I’m simultaneously being entertained. So that’s what we did. We started entertaining our crownd

We asked for people to help us by inviting their friends to our page. And they did! We hit numbers that would have taken us 3 years to build. We hit them in only about 4 days. I was amazed. Just because we asked and, it seems that at this time, more people are willing to help others. 

Of course that’s if they’re not bitching at each other about masks. 

I got back to my weekly emails to my patients. I had fallen off to emailing only once every 3-4 weeks. Now I’m back on a weekly schedule. 

I revamped my To Do list to include everything thing that I need to accomplish every day so I don’t forget or let things lapse. I want to stay on point with getting our message out every day, every week, every month. 

I decided to try a professional company for Facebook ads. We still have a lot of really mixed results on that sucker right now so I haven’t talked much about it but I’ll let you know how we do down the road. 

In the meantime, as if I needed something else to occupy my time, I started a voice over career on the side. Lol. To go along with my sculpting, drawing, and art career. To go along with my furniture building career. Which will go along nicely with my singer/songwriter/guitar playing career. 

Geez….is that the very definition of A.D.D. or what?

But yeah, if you need any commercials voiced for you, holler at me. I’m happy to help. 

Back to the office, I got back to doing weekly YouTube videos. Every week like clockwork. That made me get back to writing my own weekly blog. That’s work I used to hire out to a guy in South Africa but I took it back over for a bit and it’s been fun actually. 

So, as you can see, I’ve made A LOT of changes to get back on track and get this sucker not just where it was this time last year, but 10% or more bigger. Why the hell not?

Overall, I have made it a point to highlight what we are doing to help keep them as safe as we can. If COVID is the barrier, then we need to do everything we can to remove that barrier. 

Alright, like I said, you guys and gals send me you suggestions of things you are doing to get your patients back in your clinic. 

Item #1

This first one this week is called ‘Relationship between shoulder impingement syndrome and thoracic posture’ by Hunter et. al.(Hunter D 2020) and published in Physical Therapy journal in April of 2020 and that means that that is one hot son of a mother!!

Why They Did It

They say that shoulder impingement is the most common form of shoulder pain and a persistent musculoskeletal problem and that we have had limited success in treating it. They wanted to test whether or not thoracic posture has anything to do with it. 

How They Did It

• This was a case control study. 
• Thoracic posture of 39 participants with shoulder impingement was measure using the modified Cobb angle from a lateral x-ray. 
• They accounted for age, gender, and dominant arm
• T-sp range of motion was measure with inclinometer

What They Found

• Individuals with shoulder impingement had greater thoracic kyphosis and less active thoracic extension
• Greater thoracic kyphosis was associated with less extension ROM

Wrap It Up

“Individuals with shoulder impingement had a greater thoracic kyphosis and less extension ROM than age- and gender-matched healthy controls. These results suggest that clinicians could consider addressing the thoracic spine in patients with shoulder impingement.”

Item #2

Item #2 this week is called “The Effect of High Velocity Low Amplitude Cervical Manipulations on the Musculoskeletal System: Literature Review” by Giacalone et. al.(Giacalone A 2020) published in Cureus in April of 2020 which makes it too hot to handle for me!

Why They Did It

They say that cervical manipulative techniques are mostly used for the treatment of biomechanical joint dysfunction, but little is known about the possibly using them in order to achieve better performance on healthy subject

How They Did It

• A systematic search was carried out on the Pubmed electronic database from the beginning of January to March 2020.
• Two independent reviewers conducted the screening process through the PRISMA diagram to determine the eligibility of the articles.
• The inclusion criteria covered randomized controlled trial (RCT) manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals with individuals of all ages from 2005 to 2020.
• The included intervention was thrust manipulation or HVLA directed towards the cervical spine region. 
• After reviewing the literature, 21 of 74 articles were considered useful and relevant to the research question.

What They Found

• HVLA techniques, on subjects with musculoskeletal disorders, are able to influence pain modulation, mobility and strength both in the treated area and at a distance.
• Cervical manipulations are effective in management of cervicalgia, epicondylalgia, temporomandibular joint disorders and shoulder pain.
• With regard to results on strength in healthy subjects, given the divergent opinions of the authors, we cannot yet state that manipulation can significantly influence this parameter.

Item #3

Our last one is called ‘Low-dose x-ray imaging may increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases’ by Caroline Rodgers(Rodgers C 2020) and published in Medical Hypotheses in April of 2020…..look at April…..not just bringing us COVID…but also bringing us a bunch of plates of steamy hot stuff. 

As the journal says, this is a hypotheses. The hypothesis presented in this paper explores the possibility that X-ray imaging commonly used in dental practices may be a shared risk factor for sporadic dementias and motor-neuron diseases. As the evidence will suggest, the brain is ill-equipped to manage the intrusion of low-dose ionizing radiation (IR) beyond that which is naturally occurring.

When the brain's antioxidant defenses are overwhelmed by IR, it produces an abundance of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can lead to oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, loss of synaptic plasticity, altered neuronal structure and microvascular impairment that have been identified as early signs of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, vascular dementia and other diseases that progressively damage the brain and central nervous system.

Common assumptions regarding the risks of low-dose IR will be addressed, such as: 1) comparing rapid, repeated bursts of man-made IR sent exclusively into the head to equivalent amounts of head-to-toe background IR over longer periods of time; 2) whether epidemiological studies that dismiss concerns regarding low-dose IR due to lack of evidence it causes cancer, heritable mutations or shortened life spans also apply to neurodegeneration; and 3) why even radiation-resistant neurons can be severely impacted by IR exposure, due to IR-induced injury to the processes they need to function. 

If X-ray imaging is found to be associated with neurodegeneration, the risk-versus-benefit must be reevaluated, every means of reducing exposure implemented and imaging protocols revised.

So…..we here at Chiropractic Forward will be following along here. Because if this turns our to confirm that radiation causes neurodegenerative disease, you know what that means for the chiropractors shooting x-rays on each and every patient and then doing several follow up x-rays on them? 

They won’t be happy campers. But, maybe they’ll start following more guidelines that say no x-rays outside of red flags. I’ve said several times that I’m not against chiropactors that shoot initial x-rays. I’m really not. Some are just more comfortable working on people when they’ve seen what they can see. 

My issue is using the initial x-rays as a scare tactic and communicating in a catastrophic way to acheive a long treatment schedule out the patient. One they likely don’t need at all. 

My other issue would be repeating x-rays several times through treatment. That’s not evidence-based and the patient doesn’t need them. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Giacalone A, F. M., Magnifica F, Ruberti E, (2020). "The Effect of High Velocity Low Amplitude Cervical Manipulations on the Musculoskeletal System: Literature Review." Cureus 12(4): e7682.

Hunter D, R. D., McKeirnan S, (2020). "Relationship Between Shoulder Impingement Syndrome and Thoracic Posture." Phys Ther 100(4): 677-686.

Rodgers C (2020). "Low-dose X-ray Imaging May Increase the Risk of Neurodegenerative Diseases." Med Hypotheses 142(109726).

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/chiropracticforward/CF_133__Getting_Patients_Returning_Shoulder_Impingement_Cervical_Manipulation__X-rays_and_Neurodegenerative_Disease.mp3

CF 132: Giving, Maintenance Care, Dry Needling, and Vitalism

Today we’re going to talk about Giving, Maintenance Care, Dry Needling, and Vitalism

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our Facebook page, 
• Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #132

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about 5 principles to change clinical practice. There was some great information in that one all based on a recent paper that came out. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

One foot in front of the other. I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I know this concept but I don’t do it intentionally. Still….I definitely do it. I give away stuff and help others when I like them, their product, or service. I promote them without expecting anything in return. Because I don’t expect anything in return. I do it because of the reasons stated. 

Then, what happens is that through giving to others, things come back around and are given to you. That’s the way it works. Again, I don’t give to get something back.  To me, that’s just not how it works. You have to give because you have a giving heart. Not a greedy heart just giving to get. 

I talk about people that I believe in and things that I use because I like them and I think they’d be useful to you. I talk about other people’s stuff more than I talk about my own stuff. I have some awesome evidence based patient education brochures and posters on our website but I talk more about Forward Thinking Chiropractic Alliance than you hear me talk about my stuff. 

If you’re evidence-based, I firmly believe you need to be a part of the FTCA. It’s that simple. We had Kevin Christie with Modern Chiropractic Marketing Podcast on a couple weeks ago. He does it right. That’s why he was on. I believe in Dr. Christie, I like Dr. Christie, and I support him. 

ChiroUp, not only do I really like the co-owners personally, but I don’t know what I ever did without the product. Honestly, I have no idea. I was less than before I had ChiroUp in my office. 

It’s why you always hear me speak about the diplomate/fellowship through the international academy of neuromusculoskeletal medicine. I’m not sure I’ve ever professionally believed in anything more than the education you get through them. 

It’s why I talk often about involvement with the Texas Chiropractic Association. It’s because I hope you’ll see the value in being active and involved in your own associations. Doing so was one of the key gamechangers in my professional life. You can count on that. 

Same goes for philanthropy. If you’re not giving back to your local non-profits monthly, you really should consider doing so. It’s easy and it’s fun. We’ve made it a cornerstone of my personal business. 

This isn’t a ‘oh look at me and how awesome I am’ thing here. It’s just an honest conversation about something I was thinking the other day. Does any of this come back to benefit me financially? I don’t know. I really don’t have a clue. And honestly, I don’t care. Once again, that’s not why we give. We give because we have a giver’s heart. Not only do I like and believe in the people and the products or the causes, but I also think that our listeners will find value in it. If I’m providing you value, then you know you’ll get the best, most valuable information through this podcast. 

So, maybe, even if others aren’t necessarily talking us up or pumping our tires, it still comes back, huh? Either way, there’s nothing better than giving. At least for me. I came across a quote that made some sense recently. Pablo Picasso said that the meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” That’s a giver’s heart. Exactly what I’m talking about. Seems like it worked out for Pablo. 

I think about give vs. take and I think of people that are takers. Taking money from patients when they don’t need the treatment. But a doctor scared them into a ton of extra visits because it’s good for stats and the bottom line. That’s a taker. 

Being in a position to help but deciding to never do anything to help anyone unless it benefits them personally or financially. That’s a taker. 

Just being in the world to see what you can get out of it instead of what you can contribute. That’s a taker. What can you do to make your space better? How can you spread a little love and kindness? 

Just some random thoughts today. Hope it meant something to you. 

Item #1

Let’s get started with this one called “The Nordic maintenance care program: maintenance care reduces the number of days with pain in acute episodes and increases the length of pain free periods for dysfunctional patients with recurrent and persistent low back pain - a secondary analysis of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial” by andreas Eklund et al(Eklund A 2020) and published in Chirorpactic and Manual Therapies in April 2020. Hot cakes coming up, hot cakes people. 

Why They Did It

Eklund has shown in two previous papers the benefit of treating preventatively but thae benefit varied across psychological subgroups. 

The aims of this study were to investigate 

1. pain trajectories around treatments, 
2. recurrence of new episodes of LBP, and 
3. length of consecutive pain-free periods and total number of pain-free weeks, for all study participants as well as for each psychological subgroup.

How They Did It

A secondary analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial of patients seeking chiropractic care for recurrent or persistent LBP used 52 weekly estimates of days with low back pain that limited activity. 

What They Found

• Patients receiving maintenance care had flat pain trajectories around each new treatment period and reported fewer days with pain compared to patients receiving the control intervention. 
• The entire effect was attributed to the dysfunctional subgroup who reported fewer days with activity limiting pain within each new LBP episode as well as longer total pain-free periods between episodes with a difference of 9.8 weeks compared to the control group. 
• There were no differences in the time to/risk of a new episode of LBP in either of the subgroups.

Wrap It Up

Data support the use of MC in a stratified care model targeting dysfunctional patients for MC. For a carefully selected group of patients with recurrent and persistent LBP the clinical course becomes more stable and the number of pain-free weeks between episodes increases when receiving MC.

Item #2

Item 2 is called ‘Dry needling for spine related disorders: a scoping review’ by Funk et. al(Funk MF 2020). published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies  in May of 2020…..bringin’ the heat people! Bringing the heat!

Why They Did It

The depth and breadth of research on dry needling (DN) has not been evaluated specifically for symptomatic spine related disorders (SRD) from myofascial trigger points (TrP), disc, nerve and articular structures not due to serious pathologies. Current literature appears to support dry needling for treatment of trigger points. Goals of this review include identifying research published on dry needling treatment for spine related disorders, sites of treatment and outcomes studied.

How They Did It

A scoping review was conducted following Levac et al.’s five part methodological framework to determine the current state of the literature regarding dry needling for patients with spine related disorders.

That sound fine and freaking dandy but what the hell is a scoping review vs. a systematic review? Well, I did the work for you and here’s what we have. Within the framework of research methods, a well- done scoping review is considered at a higher level than a straightforward review of literature or an integrative review, but not as in depth as a Cochrane or Johanna Briggs model systematic review

Researchers may conduct scoping reviews instead of systematic reviews where the purpose of the review is to identify knowledge gaps, scope a body of literature, clarify concepts or to investigate research conduct. While useful in their own right, scoping reviews may also be helpful precursors to systematic reviews and can be used to confirm the relevance of inclusion criteria and potential questions.

Although conducted for different purposes compared to systematic reviews, scoping reviews still require rigorous and transparent methods in their conduct to ensure that the results are trustworthy. 

And now we’ve both learned something so that’s awesome. 

Wrap It Up

Back to the paper here; I’m not even going to get into the meat and taters here on this paper because you’ll zone off and might even tune out. I have it cited in the show notes if you really want to find it and dive in. Getting straight to the conclusion, the authors say, “For spine related disorders, dry needling was primarily applied to myofascial structures for pain or TrP diagnoses. Many outcomes were improved regardless of diagnosis or treatment parameters. Most studies applied just one treatment which may not reflect common clinical practice. Further research is warranted to determine optimal treatment duration and frequency. Most studies looked at dry needling as the sole intervention. It is unclear whether dry needling alone or in addition to other treatment procedures would provide superior outcomes.”

We covered a paper on dry needling last year that suggested it had little use. It appears it does indeed have some use. They just don’t know how to best use it yet. If that makes sense.

Item #3

Our last one today is called ‘Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic:a help or a hinderance?” by J. Keith Simpson and Kenneth J. Young(Simpson J 2020) and published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies June 11, 2020. See the sizzle on that stacks of steaming sizzlers.  

Why They Did It

Chiropractic emerged in 1895 and was promoted as a viable health care substitute in direct competition with the medical profession. This was an era when there was a belief that one cause and one cure for all disease would be discovered. The chiropractic version was a theory that most diseases were caused by subluxated (slightly displaced) vertebrae interfering with “nerve vibrations” (a supernatural, vital force) and could be cured by adjusting (repositioning) vertebrae, thereby removing the interference with the body’s inherent capacity to heal. DD Palmer, the originator of chiropractic, established chiropractic based on vitalistic principles. Anecdotally, the authors have observed that many chiropractors who overtly claim to be “vitalists” cannot define the term. Therefore, we sought the origins of vitalism and to examine its effects on chiropractic today.

Discussion

Vitalism arose out of human curiosity around the biggest questions: Where do we come from? What is life? For some, life was derived from an unknown and unknowable vital force. For others, a vital force was a placeholder, a piece of knowledge not yet grasped but attainable. Developments in science have demonstrated there is no longer a need to invoke vitalistic entities as either explanations or hypotheses for biological phenomena. Nevertheless, vitalism remains within chiropractic. In this examination of vitalism within chiropractic we explore the history of vitalism, vitalism within chiropractic and whether a vitalistic ideology is compatible with the legal and ethical requirements for registered health care professionals such as chiropractors.

They say that despite the obstacle of vitalism, chiropractic has made extraordinary inroads into the health care system worldwide. Having emerged from the pre-scientific health care era in the United States of America (USA) in the early twentieth century it now has a global footprint with representation in approximately 100 countries. It is the third largest regulated primary contact health care profession in the western world

Conclusion

Vitalism has had many meanings throughout the centuries of recorded history. Though only vaguely defined by chiropractors, vitalism, as a representation of supernatural force and therefore an untestable hypothesis, sits at the heart of the divisions within chiropractic and acts as an impediment to chiropractic legitimacy, cultural authority and integration into mainstream health care.

Y’all know by now how I feel about it. When you have someone following current research, updating their procedures and thought process as the knowledge base expands, and taking care of their patients and running their businesses in an ethical way with the highest of morals and love, then you’re my kind of person. I respect you and I’m proud of you. Most of our listeners are that kind of practitioner. 

If you’re scaring people into a bunch of visits based on stuff research says is no big deal, if you’re convincing people they depend on seeing you consistently, if you’re engaging in vaccine discussions when you’ve read a book or two but never been proper educated to do so, when you’re stats and your profits come before the true needs of the patient, then I don’t respect you and I wonder how you sleep at night with the knowledge of how you are screwing and stealing from patients coming to you for your help weighing heavily on your conscience. They come to you for your help. Not to buy you a big house. Not to be lied to. Not to have false, fake, or outdated ideas shoved up their poop shoot and to be taken advantage of. 

Stop it dammit. It’s gross and you give everyone that truly works their asses off a bad name. You’re the reason someone that gets a diplomate or some other significant continueing education ro certification…..you’re the reason they still get laughed at behind their backs. You should be ashamed of what you do to yourselves, your colleagues, and your profession. 

I’m really not a bitchy guy. I’m a fun-loving ‘let’s have a beer’ kind of guy. But very few things grind my geears worse than this stuff. Honestly. It’s the wrench in my gears, the salt in my wound if you will. I think about it and I start breaking out in hives and get all rashy. My eyes about roll out of my damn head onto the floor. 

I’ll be in a better mood next week. I hope. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Eklund A, H. J., Jensen I, Leboeuf-Yde C, (2020). "The Nordic maintenance care program: maintenance care reduces the number of days with pain in acute episodes and increases the length of pain free periods for dysfunctional patients with recurrent and persistent low back pain - a secondary analysis of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial." Chiropr Man Therap 28(19).

Funk MF, F.-D. A. (2020). "Dry needling for spine related disorders: a scoping review." Chiropr Man Therap 28(23).

Simpson J, Y. K. (2020). "Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?" Chiropr Man Therap 28(35).

CF 131: New Information On 5 Actions To Change Clinical Practice

Today we’re going to talk about moving toward being patient-centered. There are 5 actions recommended. What does it even mean? I might just ruffle some feathers here but a damn I do not giveth.

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button 

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our Facebook page, 
• Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #131

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we were joined by Dr. Kevin Christie with The Modern Chiropractic Marketing podcast and author of a new book that’s coming out on chiropractic marketing. Kevin is a rising star in chiropractic and is a must-not-miss. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

Still climbing in the patient numbers. Where I’m located here in Amarillo, TX, there is a population of approximately 280,000 people. Last week, on Thursday and Friday we added 3 total cases of COVID on Thursday and only 2 cases on Friday. Then the following Monday, we added 11. 

So, as you can see, the numbers here are no longer high. People are sort of ‘over it’ and you can see that and hear it when you talk to the patients. Hell, I’m sort of over it but still being smart. I’m having friends to the house again but we stay outside by the pool and have a couple of adult beverages. 

I have a friend that is a musician. Last weekend, he played a rodeo on Woodward, OK. He said there were probably 1,000+ people at the event and it was indoors. So, in Woodward, OK at least, they are REALLY over it. No way in hell I’m grouping up with that many people indoor or outdoor right now. It just doesn’t make sense to me for now. 

I guess if I were 28 and at the top of my game physically it wouldn’t make any difference to me either. But going to an event where people are yelling and cheering right behind, beside, and in front of me….big nopers right now. Ain’t happnin’

I noticed that while cases seem to be leveling off across America, they’re not increasing or decreasing as much as you’d like but, what I noticed is that the deaths are going down. Fairly signficantly. So wouldn’t that fit with the news that started coming out a couple weaks ago about the virus losing some potency? 

People are still getting it but not as many dying from it. Another explanation could be that we’ve gotten better at treating it. Either way, that’s not my lane so I’m not going to act like the expert. I’ll just say hell yay-us and keep the good news coming so we can all get back to life as it was meant to be lived. 

I hope you’re all well and staying healthy. As always, if you care about the kind of information I share every week and you listen consistently, I’m proud of you. I think you care about the right stuff and even though I don’t know you all, I consider you my friend. 

Item #1

Let’s kick this week’s research reviews off with this one called ‘It is time to move beyond body region silos to manage musculoskeletal pain; five actinos to change clinical practice’ by Caneiro et. al(Caneiro JP 2020). published in British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2020. We got a hot one over here!!

This paper actually has a lot of big names in the industry like Caneiro, O’Sullivan, O’Sullivan and Jan Hartvigsen. If you don’t know Jan’s name, you just haven’t been a regular listener. 

Why They Did It

They say that current clinical research, education, and practice approaches musculoskeletal pain and conditions in silos. Basically it’s a focus on body regions like the knee, hip, neck, shoulder, etc. 

But current thinking actually shows that the pain disorders are frequently comorbid and share common biopsychosocial risk profiles for pain and disability. 

They say that a shift to focusing on the person is what is needed and that this would encourage the doctors to:

1. focus on the patients’ context and modifiable biopsychosocial factors that influence their pain and disability
2. Use education to facilitate active management approaches (targeted exercise therapy, physical activity, and healthy lifestyle habits) thus reducing reliance on passive interventions
3. Consider evidence-based surgical procedures only for those with a clear indication and where guideline-based non-surgical approaches have been rigorously adhered to. 

Well who the hell can’t get behind all of that? Honestly, it’s odd when you think about it that in the year 2020, we’re still saying that surgery should be evidence-based and follow certain guides and that conservative treatment should be first basically. How’s that not just common sense and common procedure in 2020? We’re supposed to have freaking flying cars by now but the medical field doesn’t have this stuff down they way they should just yet? 

It’s money. I know. I understand it. But it’s frustrating as hell all the same. 

In this paper, the authors say to be truly patient-centered, they have five actions they recommend for managing a person with musculoskeletal pain, irrespective of body region. 

1. Screen for biopsychosocial factors and health comorbidities. Notice this is #1 on their recommendations. If you’re just getting them in a pop a crack a lack and sending them on without this step, your results are going to be less than you or the patient desires. They say we need to communicate clearly with the patient to identify potential biopsychosocial drivers of the pain and then provide the therapy to fill that gap. These things include pain beliefs, emotional and coping responses to pain, social contest, physical and lifestyle factors and the presence of comorbidities. They recommend using the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire. 
2. Embrace patient-centered communication. This one is huge and this is one of the key things we learned in the Fellowship training for the neuromusculoskeletal medicine program. Clinicians should use open and reflective questioning to elicit the patient’s understanding of factors, which include the pain experience (tell me your story), causation beliefs (what do they think is the cause of the pain?), coping (what do you do when the pain increases?), impact (Tell me how your symptoms affect your ability to move and function), concerns (do your symptoms worry you?), beliefs (why do you think you shouldn’t bend/lift, or run?), social factors (tell me about your home life or work life), goals (what are you rgoals?), and expectations. Yes, to an extent, updated research and thinking has us behaving a bit like a psychologist I think. It’s not my favorite stuff. But, when you learn and consider how much pain is held in the brain due to these yellow flag indicators, then you start to realize that pain, certainly chronic pain, cannot just be treated at a peripheral source. You have to address the pain from a central sensitization perspective at least equally or you risk never being able to help these patients. 
3. Educate beyond words using active learning approaches. doctors have to embrace education as a central part of patient care if we are going to change behavior. We have to dispel myths about pain, imaging findings, and activity engagement (for example, hurt does not equal harm). They say that behavioral learning like exercise therapy can be used to bust myths that are unhelpful. Myths and beliefs that lead to things like fear avoidance. 
4. Coach towards self-management. A large portion of the chiropractic profession wants and desires patients to depend on them week after week, month after month and that’s just not real world stuff. And it’s not helpful for the patient’s recovery either. We should be empowering patients to engage in exercise, valued activities and a healthy lifestyle with confidence. Can you feel the difference here? “Mary, I know you’re only 35 but you already have some degenerative discs in your neck and I’m so concerned about it. This should be considered urgent and I’m going to need to see you 5 million times for the rest of your life.” Is that helpful or is this helpful? “Mary, I know you read on your rad report here that there is a finding of a degenerative disc in your neck but the truth is, that’s very common and not something you should be concerned with. Certainly not over-concerned with. I actually prefer the word ‘deconditioned’ over ‘degenerative.’ A good percentage of 30-40 year old patients have some mildly deconditioned discs but these rarely ever cause any issues. You’re young, you’re strong, and you’re healthy. We’re going to get everything moving correctly and then I’m going to give you some excellent exercises to really focus on the region and build plenty of support. You’re going to do great.” When you stack those two next to each other, it’s easy to see how harmful one is as opposed to the other more positive, more hopeful one. I got a little side tracked there, the point is, help them take control and self manage. Active amnagement relieves pain and improves function across pain conditions and health comorbidities. 
5. Address comorbid health factors. They say clinicians should refer for co-care in teh presence of comorbid mental and physical health complaints like high levels of emotional distress, eating disorders, and type 2 diabetes. The authors say they contend that multidisciplinary care needs to be integrated, with consistent messages across the team to prevent care fragmentation and patient distress. 

Wrapping up the paper, the authors say Patient-centered care will optimize the value of healthcare provided. Shifting funding to support high-value evidence-based care options and educating society will be critical to enable this transition and will likely be cost-effective. Integrated cross-discipline clinical networds are required for effective co-care. We believe clinicians are ready to change, but they require the support of health systems and payers. 

One word….two syllables. Day-um. You day-um right. But, health systems and payers are stuck on the part of our profession that doesn’t care about movement, function, yellow flags, exercise, or proper patient-centered practice. They’re stuck on the portion of our profession that is TIC or TOR or principled or whatever the hell useless drivel they’re using this week. 

The hardcore, philosophy, doctor-centered, faith-based rather than evidence-based group of chiropractors are smaller but they’re so much louder. And dangerous. They’re flat-earthers. They’re the reason the evidence-based group will never reach any kind of cultural authority. 

You can have a GROUP of guys and girls go through years of continuing education and maybe get a couple of diplomats in neuro or orthopedics or rehab….wahtever….and they can be the smartest chiropractor on the planet and almost 100% of their patients get well. 

And then you have just ONE lowsy-ass guy or girl go and bait and switch just ONE patient into 80 visits in a year with a contract and all of the bells and stupid whistles of a doctor-centered practice, and that group that worked so so hard loses every ounce of legitimacy. Because of ONE jackhole that refuses to understand or read research or refuses to sacrifice some money in the interest of their patients well-being. 

It’s gross. It’s awful. But it’s chiropractic. We are already looked at with a side-glance untrusting gaze. So any deviance of behavior that would be widely considered normal is magnified. Just one ruins the batch for all of us. 

I remember a preacher once saying that you gain trust in drops but you lose it in buckets. The reality in chiropractic is that just one faith-based, doctor-centered jackhole loses trust in ALL chiropractors in buckets. For ALL of us. 

My plea is to start sharing this podcast with your subluxation friends. Especially the young students that haven’t yet decided to be ‘principled.’ Maybe we can help lead them down the right path from the very start. The more people are exposed to the research and to the idea of being patient-centered, the more they’ll latch onto it. They have to. One is borderline evil, and the other is not. It’s backed by science. One destroys reputations for the sake of the dollar. One builds reputations and respect. One is built on ideas and theories over a century old that cannot or have not been proven while the other is backed by science and progress. How is it even a damn choice to begin with?

We’re either a healthcare profession. Or we are a faith. True healthcare professions do research and then they do more and they change according to what works well and they drop the stuff that doesn’t, and on and on to the point of really being on the cutting edge of the science and on the health of our patients. 

I’ll never understand how such a percentage of our profession can’t get on board with that. Whatever the answer to that question might be, it’s that answer that keeps us at the bottom of the cultural authority ladder. 

Unfortunately, I don’t see if changing any time soon. Not until the governing boards decided it’s time to change once and for all.  

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Caneiro JP, R. E., Baron CJ, et. al., (2020). "It is time to move beyond ‘body region silos’ to manage musculoskeletal pain: five actions to change clinical practice." Br J Sports Med 54: 435-443.

CF 130 w/ Dr. Kevin Christie: Doing It Right, Marketing Chiropractic, & Book Release

Today we’re going to be joined by Dr. Kevin Christie of the Modern Chiropractic Marketing Podcast and we’re going to talk about marketing of course but more specifically, marketing responsibly and marketing the right way. 

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our Facebook page, 
• Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #130

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Chronic Pain and Exercise. That episode had some excellent stuff in it from Craig Liebneson, Annie O’Connor and several others. Great stuff. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

When we have a guest, we typically dispense with the personal practice observations. Other than my sharing with you all that it looks like I’m about to fully entertain hiring an associate. You know I’ll keep you all updated on this process and how it goes. Something that is that big of a change is, of course, stressful as hell. Throw in a pandemic and you might just say I’ve up to my damn ears and eyes but sometimes, you’re led one direction or the other. Sometimes opportunity knocks and you must answer the door. We’ll see how it goes. 

Right now though, let’s get to our guest today. 

Kevin Christie understands the unique pressures of the evidence-informed chiropractor. Kevin has run his own practice for over fourteen years. With two offices and multiple staff (plus associates), he knows how important it is to not just be excellent at treating patients but being a great leader and marketer as well. 

Kevin has worked with the NFL, PGA Tour, and has been featured on ESPN and Fox Sports. 

Using the best tools available to us in the digital age, Kevin empowers evidence-informed chiropractors to achieve their own dreams of running a successful practice.

Welcome to the show Dr. Christie, can I call you Kevin and you call me Jeff?

1. First thing’s first, congrats on the new baby. Are you getting any sleep?
2. Tell me a little about you. Being located in Boca Raton now, did you grow up in Florida?
3. What’s your chiro story? Why, of all of the things to be in the world, did you choose chiropractic?
4. I first became aware of you through your podcast. I was doing a little chiro podcasting research when I decided to turn my weekly blog into a weekly podcast. Then through your podcast, I sought out and joined your Facebook group by the same name. Your funnel worked on me. What got you so interested in podcasting, marketing, and Facebook groups?
5. While I am mostly about research and evidence-based, patient-centered practice on this podcast, marketing is something I’ve done a lot of work on and is a big part of what I do day-to-day. It has definitely played a big part in what I talk about here on the podcast from week to week. I haven’t personally heard you weave current research literature into your marketing teachings but I know you are very evidence-based in your practice approach. How does being evidence-based and patient-centered play into your marketing strategies and techniques?
6. You have teamed up with Dr. Bobby Maybee to create a group called Chiropractic Success Academy. Tell me about it. How is it different than the run of the mill guru practice management groups? What doctors fit this group the best?
7. You do so many things, what does a regular week pre-COVID, look like for you?
8. If there were a younger chiropractor, fairly fresh out of school that wanted to be a Dr. Kevin Christie, where would you tell them to start and what steps would you tell them to take? What have been your career ‘game-changers’?
9. Speaking of younger chiropractors, when we met face to face in St. Louis at the Forward ’19 event, you told me about preceptors. I went an applied at Logan and I’m in. But I think there’s something more appealing about a young chiropractor going to Boca Raton rather than Amarillo, TX. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is but, for some of the older docs out there looking at needing some help and they have a teacher’s heart, can you share some of your preceptorship experiences with our audience?
10. Tell me about this new book you have coming out that Parker is publishing. How’d it all come about? 

I reallly appreciate you taking the time. There’s literally someting for every chiropractor in this episode, good luck with the book, I know I’ll be buying one. 

Item #1

Why They Did It

How They Did It

What They Found

Wrap It Up

Before we get to our guest this week, I did a thing

Being an evidence-informed practitioner can present a set of problems at times. Mostly problems with regard to patient volume because we don’t typically treat patient with long-term recommendations. So we see them come and go depending on if they hurt or not. It can lead to lulls, disappointment, and boredom if there’s not a steady stream of new patients coming through your pearly gates each and every month.

I have taken various courses over the years at Udemy so when I decided to create a course, I immediately thought Udemy would be a good place to start. 

While I’m still building the course and adding content every week, it’s live and ready to go for those interested in getting started. I’m putting the link to the course at this point in the show notes. You can go to chiropracticforward.com, go to Episodes and find this episode and just scroll till you find it. 

https://www.udemy.com/course/marketing-evidence-based-chiropractic/?referralCode=36A4D91C66B48300360B

Over the last two years or so, I’ve averaged almost 80 new patients every month as a solo practitioner. If you’re interested, I created, basically, my playbook for marketing and my thoughts on each topic or technique. I also have created downloads, checklists, and examples to show what my stuff looks like. 

Just go to udemy.com and do a search on Marketing An Evidence Based Chiropractic Practice and check it out. It will grow and expand in the coming months and if you get just one patient from the ideas shared in it, it paid for itself. Now imagine if you get a bunch….well then it’s priceless. udemy.com and the course is called Marketing and Evidence-based Chiropractic Practice.

Item #2

Why They Did It

How They Did It

What They Found

Wrap It Up

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

CF 128: Tylenol Fails For Back Pain, Cervical Disc Research, & CAM For Headache/Migraine

Today we’re going to talk about Tylenol Fails For Back Pain, Cervical Disc Research, & complementary and alternative medicine For Headache/Migraine

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our facebook page, 
• Join our private facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #128

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we were joined on the show by Dr. William Morgan. You wanna hear a truly impressive indivicual speak and share, this is one of those episodes my friends. I wouldn’t steer you the wrong way. Go to last week’s episode and give it a listen. We talked about all kinds of good stuff, we talked about excellence, we talked about Parker, we talked about chiropractic in general and Dr. Morgan shared some experiences with us about treating the President of the United States of America. Wow. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

I don’t know how long I’ve been back full force now but it’s been some time. As with anything, you start to adopt new procedures and then those new things become habit and hardly even noticeable anymore. 

I see chiros asking what others are wearing. Some don’t take COVID seriously so they don’t wear anything, to be honest. They just wash hands as if washing your hands takes it out of the air or prevents the coughing from putting it out there for you to breathe.  I wear a mask. I glasses so I just wear them for any eye cover. Who knows if that even matters? It probably doesn’t. 

I wear gloves. Not because I’m afraid to tough anyone. I started out without gloves but the sanitizer and soap washing all of the time ate my hands up. Bad. So, gloves have solved that problem for me. Maybe I just need some new soap and I can go back to no gloves. 

Now after some unfortunate interactions on Facebook I’m stepping up onto my soapbox for a good old fashioned rant and, when I’m done, I hope we can still be friends. 

  The more interactions with people I have, even a select few supposedly educated chiropractors, the more I’m aware of how uneducated people can truly be. 

How can you confuse the mask issue? Yes, in the beginning, they said masks weren’t useful. Back when they were trying to prevent a run on N95 masks so the hospitals could have them available. 

But for months now, they have recommended them for everyone when social distancing cannot be avoided. AKA; a chiropractor’s office. 

Their latest update reiterates it. The best guess estimates are that 40% of COVID cases were due to a ‘healthy’ asymptomatic spreading it. 

They also just said last week that up to 35% of positives were in completely asymptomatic cases. That’s excellent news!! That means that a little over 1/3 of people that get it do extremely well and never even know they have it. That’s amazing. 

The problem is that that 1/3 is responsible for 40% of the cases because they don’t know they have it and are spreading it. 

How can we be so sure that masks are effective? There are three papers that were done. One in a bus, one in South Korea, and one in Washington State that suggest masks are EXTREMELY effective in stopping COVID in its tracks. 

Let’s start with the choir practice(Hammer L 2020) 

(https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm?fbclid=IwAR2iRGtCRNMPhYoxCtQnP1jGYobAhunSqWMH4DSpuga5oKaOHa4VbAH7pNc) 

Following a 2.5 hour choir practic attended by 61 persons, including a symptomatic, 32 confirmed and 20 probably secondary COVID cases occurred. If you’re counting, that’s 52 of the 61 members of the choir. 

3 patients were hospitalized and 2 died. Transmission was likely facilitated by close proximity during practice and augmented by the act of singing. 

Alright, now, let’s talk about the bus. 

In short, scientists in China studied a guy in China who passed it on to 13 others. On the bus, his germs jumped as far as 4.5 meters to other travelers and it lingered in the air for up to 30 mi nutes after the guy got off of the bus. 4.5 meters for us Americanos is almost 15 feet. 

Now, let’s talk about a new paper that came out on May 13 so it’s recent news. This paper was in the journal called Respiratory Medicine by Gao, et. al.(Gao M 2020) called ‘A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers’. 

This paper follows a case of an asymptomatic spreader and 455 contact encounters to try to assess the infectivitiy of asymptomatic carriers. 

The 455 contacts wore masks, the test subject wore masks. and nobody got sick. They didn’t give COVID to any of the 455. And all wore masks. This included family members. 

Medical Express posted an article on May 17th about some research out of Hong Kong where they tested a masking mechanism with hamsters. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-hamster-masks-coronavirus-scientists.html

The research by the University of Hong Kong is some of the first to specifically investigate whether masks can stop symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers from infecting others.

They placed hamsters that were artificially infected with the disease next to healthy animals. Surgical masks were placed between the two cages with air flow travelling from the infected animals to the healthy ones.

The researchers found non-contact transmission of the virus could be reduced by more than 75 percent when the masks were used.

Two thirds of the healthy hamsters were infected within a week if no masks were applied. Not only that but, those that did become infected were also found to have less of the virus within their bodies than those infected without a mask. The most effective use of the masks was when the person wearing the mask was the infected one. 

Problem with that is that nobody knows who is infected because up to 35% of people inffected don’t have any symptoms or feel sick. 

So, you can pass it up to 15 feet away, you can be in close proximity to 61 others and give it to 52 of them, or we can all wear masks and mostly avoid giving it to anybody. Hmmmm. Let me do the math, carry the three….and….yep, I’ll wear masks for a little while. A mask is a small ask, people. That’s the new slogan. Just give me credit. That’s all I ask. 

If you don’t require masks in your office as the CDC recommends right now, you’re putting yourself, your staff, and your immunocompromised patients at risk. 

You can wash your hands until the skin falls off and think you’re protecting everyone and doing a good job but you’re not taking it out of the air. The Czechoslovakian government got it right in their slogan, “My mask protects you and yours protects me.”

No it’s not the damn flu. While the CDC’s latest updates has a lot of good news in it, it’s still clear it’s not the damn flu. If you claim it is, you are simply not very educated on it and you’re probably doing your patients a disservice by saying that it is. 

COVID is estimated to have a .4 mortality rate. Flu is estimated at .1 so COVID is FOUR TIMES as deadly. We see that day to day because in a BAD flu year, between 60k to 80k people die of it. IN A YEAR. 

COVID has killed over 100,000 Americans in just about 3 months or so. It’s not the same as the damn flu. 

But, 0.4% is waaaayyy better than it was initially thought. Some other current news from Reuters out of Italy is that it is losing it’s potency. Meaning, it may have mutated to a less deadly version. That’s awesome news. 

In the beginning, I was worried and stressed and anxious. We all were. It was brand new and nobody knew anything about it. Not even the experts. Hell, when AIDS was brand new, the fear was that mosquitos could infect you. Then we learned more and then we were more safe. 

As more and more is known about this virus, I’m no longer as worried for myself or my family or even most of my patients. The newest CDC guesstimates show that 96.6% of COVID patients never even have to go to the hospital. That’s a pretty great stat right there. 

However, I AM afraid for my mother. I AM afraid for my Dad who is in a nursing home. I AM afraid for my other family member who is immunocompromised. I AM afraid for my patients that are immunocompromised.

I AM going to continue to be safe and be smart for those people. Not out of fear but out of an abundance of education and because it’s not the flu. I hope you’re doing the same. 

While there’s a 96.6% chance none of us ever have to go to the hospital because of it, there’s a 100% chance I’d have to close my office for a bit. I don’t know about you but I can’t afford that. This podcasting gig doesn’t pay anything so I guess I need to mind my p’s and q’s and be smart about my day to day bidniz. 

I know several that say but, but, but….what about….but. All that crap is noise. Uneducated, noise tinged with a healthy healty dose of arrogance. It really is OK to follow science and evidence. We’ve been preaching it for 3 years now. Why would COVID change that? Let science guide you. Not Bill Gates, Trump, or Pelosi. What does the science say? Stop listening to Fox and CNN. What does the science say? Stop listening to conservative or Liberal talk show hosts. What does the science say? Stop listening to Uncle Roy, the ranch manager or the warehouse worker. What does the science say? As far as that goes, stop listening to the physician on the hospital steps spouting politically biased crap and tying it into a COVID talk. Who the hell cares? What does the damn science say?

Keep it simple. Don’t let things confuse the topic. How severe, how easily spread, how can you avoid spreading or catching? Simple crap here. The rest of those people are uneducated and arrogant noise. Noise I tuned out over a month ago. 

Alright, rant over. 

Item #1

Our first Item this week is called “Efficacy and safety of Paracetamol for Spinal Pain and Osteoarthritis: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Placebo Controlled Trials” by Machado, et. al(Machado G 2015). and published in British Medical Journal in March of 2015. 

Why They Did It

They wanted to investigate the efficacy and safety of paracetamol (acetaminophen) aka Tylenol… in the management of spinal pain and osteoarthritis of the hip or knee.

How They Did It

• Systematic review and meta-analysis
• Medline, Embase, AMED, CINAHL, Web of Science, LILACS, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from inception to December 2014.
• Paper considered for inclusion were all randomised controlled trials comparing the efficacy and safety of paracetamol with placebo for spinal pain (neck or low back pain) and osteoarthritis of the hip or knee.
• 13 randomised trials were included

What They Found

• There was "high quality" evidence that paracetamol is ineffective for reducing pain intensity and disability or improving quality of life in the short term in people with low back pain. 
• For hip or knee osteoarthritis there was "high quality" evidence that paracetamol provides a significant, although not clinically important, effect on pain and disability in the short term.
• "High quality" evidence showed that patients taking paracetamol are nearly four times more likely to have abnormal results on liver function tests

Wrap It Up

“Paracetamol is ineffective in the treatment of low back pain and provides minimal short term benefit for people with osteoarthritis. These results support the reconsideration of recommendations to use paracetamol for patients with low back pain and osteoarthritis of the hip or knee in clinical practice guidelines.”

Item #2

This one is called “Relationship of Modic Changes, Disk Herniation Morphology, and Axial Location to Outcomes in Symptomatic Cervical Disk Herniation Patients Treated With High-Velocity, Low-Amplitude Spinal Manipulation: A Prospective Study” by Kressig et. al(Kressig M 2016). and published in Journal of Manipulative Physiology and Therapeutics in October 2016. 

Why They Did It

The authors here wanted to evaluate whether cervical disc herniation (CDH) location, morphology, or Modic changes (MCs) are related to treatment outcomes.

How They Did It

• (MRI) and outcome data from 44 patients with CDH treated with spinal manipulative therapy were evaluated
• MRI scans were assessed for cervical disc hernation location, morphology, and modic changes
• Pain and Neck Disability Index data were collected at baseline; 2 weeks; 1, 3, and 6 months; and then again at 1 year

Wrap It Up

Although patients who were Modic positive had higher baseline NDI scores, the proportion of these patients improved was higher for all time points up to 6 months. Patients with Modic I changes did worse than patients with Modic II changes at only 2 weeks.

Item #3

Our last one is called, “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among US Adults With Headache or Migraine: Results From the 2012 National Health Interview Survey” by Zhang et. al(Zhang Y 2017). and was published in Headache journal in September of 2017. 

Why They Did It

They did this to answer the following questions: (1) Which copmlementar and alternative (CAM) modalities are used most frequently among migraine/headache sufferers? and (2) What are the self-reported reasons for CAM use among migraine/headache sufferers?

What They Found

The most frequently used CAM modality for headache/migraine was manipulative therapy at only 22%. Herbal supplementation was at 21.7% usage, and mind-body therapy was at 17.9%. The top 3 reasons given for using CAM for headaches were for general wellness, at about 28.7%, improving overall health at about 26.8%, and for reducing stress at about 16.7%.

Although CAM is used by many sufferers of headaches and migraines, its use specifically for the the headache or migraine is low in the US. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, belive it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

• Gao M, Y. L. (2020). "A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers." Resp Med.
• Hammer L, D. P., Capron I, Ross A, (2020). "High SARS-CoV-2 Attack Rate Following Exposure at a Choir Practice — Skagit County, Washington, March 2020." CDC Weekly 69(19): 606-610.
• Kressig M, P. C., McChurch K, Schmid C, (2016). "Relationship of Modic Changes, Disk Herniation Morphology, and Axial Location to Outcomes in Symptomatic Cervical Disk Herniation Patients Treated With High-Velocity, Low-Amplitude Spinal Manipulation: A Prospective Study." J Manipulative Physiol Ther 39(8): 565-575.
• Machado G, M. C., Ferreira P, Pinheiro M, (2015). "Efficacy and safety of Paracetamol for Spinal Pain and Osteoarthritis: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Placebo Controlled Trials." BMJ 350(h1225).
• Zhang Y (2017). "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among US Adults With Headache or Migraine: Results From the 2012 National Health Interview Survey." Headache 57(8): 1228-1242.

CF 127 w/ Dr. William Morgan: A Conversation About Excellence, Research, Parker University, and Chiropractic

Today we’re going to be joined by Dr William Morgan, President of Parker University and over-all impressive human being. 

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our facebook page, 
• Join our private facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #127

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about immunity boosting, coconut oil failures, and screen time and its apparent association with autism. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

When we have a guest, we typically dispense with my personal thoughts and practice experiences over the course of the week. We will do that same this week outside of this; I was with many of you. I closed shop for 2 weeks. Solid. Closed. Then, I gradually started back with urgent/emergent care just like our governing board in Texas recommended. 

At this point, I’m in my 3rd week of being completely re-opened. Even to wellness and maintenance care. While I’m used to 180-220 patient visits per week, I’m now experiencing about 110-120. We’re low. Obviously. But, it’s growing every week. People are beginning to tire of the restrictions on their activities and, I’d assume to some extent, are becoming somewhat numb or less concerned…..or more comfortable I guess with the risk aspect of it all. 

Ragardless, they’re starting to return. I’m pretty sure those of you that closed and did a gradual re-opening like me are experiencing much the same. Now if we can get the massage therapists back to work safely. We’re still waiting to see what happens on that end of it. 

OK, let’s get to our guest today. I tell you sincerely, we are hitting the high spots on this show. WI’m just sitting here thinking about all of the amazing guests we’ve had over the last three years and just in the last few months we’ve had Dr. Stu McGill, Dr. Mike Massey, and now Dr. Williams Morgan. It’s been fun to watch this thing of ours grow and continue to grow. You, the listener, is the main reason for that growth and I just want to continue to thank you and tell you how important you are to me and how much I appreciate you. 

Usually, bios and intros can be a bit mundane. Not today, my friends. 

When your guest has been the chiropractor to the US Congress, the US Supreme Court, and to the White Hosue, well, you know it’s going to be a good one don’t you?

Not only that but Dr. William Morgan, as mentioned, is the President of Parker University, and active member of the Texas Chiropractic Association and has been testifying on chiropractic issues in the last two Texas Legislative Sessions, and is happy and proud to be a Texan. That’s my kind of guy right there!! Our Texan pride is indeed legendary and probably annoying to anyone outside of the state. 

At age 17, he joined the Navy and served with an elite Marine Recon company as a hospital corpsman. During that time, he qualified in parachuting, military diving, submarine insertion, jungle warfare, combat swimming, explosives, mountaineering, winter warfare and Arctic survival. Additionally, he attended anti-terrorist training at the FBI Academy. After leaving active military service and transferring to the Navy Reserves, Dr. Morgan began his educational journey to become a doctor of chiropractic. While at Palmer College of Chiropractic-West, he transferred to a Naval Special Warfare platoon as the unit’s primary hospital corpsman. He was sent to Special Operations Technician training to learn the principles of dive medicine. For the next eight years, he served as a dive medicine corpsman/combat swimmer for a platoon of Navy frogmen in Naval Special Warfare Unit One. 

 In 1985, Dr. Morgan received his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic–West and soon after, married fellow Palmer graduate, Clare Pelkey. They practiced for thirteen years in California. In 1998, Dr. Morgan was chosen to establish the first chiropractic clinic at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, which later became Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In 2015, Walter Reed recognized Dr. Morgan with its highest honor for clinical excellence, the Master Clinician’s Award. During the last 18 years at the military’s most prestigious medical centers, he practiced in an integrative setting, providing chiropractic care to the injured troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In the year 2000, Dr. Morgan was appointed as the Chiropractor to Congress at the U.S. Capitol. At the Office of the Attending Physician to Congress, doctors of many specialties care for members of Congress and the Supreme Court. In 2007, Dr. Morgan began serving as the White House Chiropractor. He was appointed chiropractor for the United States Naval Academy football team in 2009 (which never lost to Army while under his care). 

In 2011, Dr. Morgan was appointed to the United States Navy Musculoskeletal Continuum of Care Advisory Board, an entity created to address the prevalent injuries sustained by U.S. Armed Forces Personnel during active-duty operations. Dr. Morgan also served on the Spine Subcommittee, which helps develop care algorithms for treating spinal conditions and determining the future of musculoskeletal management in the U.S. Armed Forces. 

Dr. Morgan has completed a 2,000-hour residency in Integrated Medicine. He served on the Board of Trustees for Palmer College of Chiropractic for ten years. He is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management and has held adjunct faculty positions at F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and New York Chiropractic College. Additionally, Dr. Morgan served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), helping to implement the VA’s chiropractic benefit and advocate for chiropractic research 

Parker University inaugurated William E. Morgan as their seventh President in 2016. Upon arriving in Texas, he became an active member and supporter of the Texas Chiropractic Association (TCA). Almost immediately, he organized a leadership summit to establish a legislative agenda strategy for chiropractors in Texas. Texas Chiropractors had not won a significant legislative victory in two decades, but in 2017 four bills advantageous to the chiropractic profession passed. Additionally, Morgan has assisted in fundraising, membership recruitment, and awareness for the TCA. As lifetime member of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA), he has also held several leadership positions in the organization. 

Just last year, I was at the TCA President’s Gala when Dr. Morgan was awarded the Keeler Plaqque which is awarded to the chiropractor of the year but is also a lifte time service award of sorts. It’s the most prestigious award the TCA gives so it’s quite an honor. And here in Texas, we are quite honored to have Dr. Morgan on our team. As a sidenote, I’m honored to know Dr. Morgan personally and really appreciate him agreeing to come on this podcast so let’s hop into it. 

Welcome to the show Dr. Morgan, thank you so much for caving to my pestering and agreeing to shut me up by finally coming on the show. 

Having the background you have, you’ve spent serious time on both coasts of our great nation. Now you find yourself dead center, right in the middle of the country. What was the allure of Texas for you, how has Texas treated you, and what has been your favorite thing about living here in Texas?

Did you have any early perceptions of Texas or Texans when you moved here that proved to be false and did you have any that proved to be absolutely true?

Everyone has a chiropractic story, what led you to want to be a chiropractor?

Can you share a little about how you got to the point of climbing the ranks and becoming the chiropractor to Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House? How did it all come about?

Can you share some of the legally shareable and more unique stories or experiences of treating those types of patients?

You moved to Dallas, TX to tak the helm of Parker University as their 7th President. Just a little background on me personally, I was there when Jim Parker was still around. I was there when he passed away and his son Karl took over and I believe Fab Mancini was coming on board about the time I graduated. I’m well acquainted with Parker of yesteryear. When you got to Parker, what was one of the first things you wanted to change?

What would you say has/have been the changes you’ve made since arriving that you are the most proud of?

When I was in school there, exercise/rehab honestly was not a big aspect of the curricula. I know a bit about you and Parker Fit. Have exercies and rehabilitation taken on a larger role since 1998?

Some areas of the country never experience something you all unfortunatley went through last year. Tell us a bit about the tornado, the aftermath, and going forward from it. 

Now, from one awful event to another. Our current global pandemic. How is Parker University handling this event? What can students expect going forward?

During this crazy time, there have been a lot of divisions in the country from opening vs. closing to ‘I refuse to wear a mask’ vs. ‘can you please wear a mask’? Our profession, unfortunately, is no different. It’s been divided along clear lines for decades and this pandemic has brought some of the divisions into the spotlight. One of them is between those that promote spinal manipulative therapy as a way to boost immunity and those that do not support that. When this was really first unfolding and our Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners, the WHO, the WFC, and the ACA were all telling chiropractors the support for immunity boosting is not present in the research literature, you and Dr. Katie Pohlman (I love Katie and need her on the show BTW)…you and Dr. Pohlman recorded a very smart and well-stated video saying that indeed, the research literature cannot support immunity boosting at this time. Obviously, I was and am 100% on board with it and I said all of that to ask you this, was there any fallout to that? How did you handle it? And what went into the decision to record it in the first place. 

Let’s move to legislative issues. What have you felt is our biggest issues in Texas and on the national level when it comes to chiropractic? 

I have said repeatedly on this show that due to the opioid crisis and due to the emerging research over the last 5-10 years, I truly feel there’s not been a better time to be a chiropractor since the 1980s. As the President of a chiropractic college, what is the status of our profession right now? Not just in terms of the pandemic but over the course of the last year. Over the course of the next 5 years. Am I right about it being a great time? Am I wrong? Or a little bit of both?

Thank you for joining us today!

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, belive it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

Store

Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Subscribe Button

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes. 

Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms. 

We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

Website

http://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link

https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health--Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/chiropracticforward/CF_127_w__Dr._William_Morgan__A_Conversation_About_Excellence_Research_Parker_University_and_Chiropractic.mp3

CF 126: No Immune Benefit, Coconut Oil Fails, and Screen Time & Autism

Today we’re going to talk about Immune boosting via spinal manipulative therapy, we’ll talk about coconut oil and it’s mirage, and we’ll talk about autism and screen time. It’s a good one today folks!

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music 

Subscribe button

OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around. 

We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers.

I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

• Like our facebook page, 
• Join our private facebook group and interact, and then 
• go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
• We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
• While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it. 

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #126

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about current knowledge on making a robust low back pain diagnosis. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

On the personal end of things…..

We’re still hanging in there. For me personally, I shut down in the beginning for two weeks. Completely shut down. Some stayed open the whole time and never made a lot of changes. So at this point, understandably, they’re ahead as far as getting their patient base back to 100%. 

For me, I’m more around 65%-70% of my normal load. Whild the entrepreneur in me is not real happy with that, the business owner that was needing to take a breath and breathe a little bit is happy about it.

At this point, it is what it is. Literally. There’s only so much we have control over. I am a saver by nature. I started a mulit-account system years ago that socks money away for different purposes. I have about 7 or 8 different accounts that I move money to at the end of each week. So, fortunately, I don’t take loans. Other than student loans and house loans, I don’t get into much debt at all. 

That only goes so far and I’m not willing to drain it all just to keep employees when I don’t have enough business but, if things continue to go well and we see the numbers coming back to a more normal state and then hopefully stabilize, I don’t believe I’ll have to do anything like drain accounts or let employees go. I love my staff and I’ll fight for them. But I won’t go broke for anyone. Except maybe my kids or my mom. 

So far so good. This crap has a time limit. We won’t be stuck with it like this forever. Maybe longer than we want but not forever. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time. We’ll get there.  

Item #1

Let’s start out easy today. This one is called “Association of Early-life social and digital media experiences with development of autism spectrum disorder-like symptoms” by Karen Heffler, et. al. (Heffler K 2020) and published in JAMA on April 20, 2020 and that’s a hot one folks. 

Why They Did It

They wanted to answer the question, “Are screen media exposure and social and demographic factors associated with the risk for autism spectrum disorder on a modified checklist for autism in toddlers at 2 years of age?

How They Did It

• Data for this cohort study were derived from the National Children’s Study, 
• A total of 2152 children were enrolled at birth from October 1, 2010, to October 31, 2012. 
• Data were analyzed from December 1, 2017, to December 3, 2019.
• Caregivers reported whether the child viewed television and/or videos (yes or no) at 12 months of age, hours of viewing at 18 months of age, time spent by the caregiver reading to the child (number of days per week compared with daily) at 12 months of age, and frequency of playing with the child (daily or less than daily) at 12 months of age
• Prematurity, maternal age at birth, child sex, household income, race/ethnicity, and caregiver English-language status were included in analysis.

Wrap It Up

“This cohort study found greater screen exposure and less caregiver-child play early in life to be associated with later ASD-like symptoms. Further research is needed to evaluate experiential factors for potential risk or protective effects in ASD.” Basically, “Less screen exposure and more parent-child play at 12 months of age were associated with fewer ASD–like symptoms at 2 years of age”

Before we get to the next item this week, I did a thing

Being an evidence-informed practitioner can present a set of problems at times. Mostly problems with regard to patient volume because we don’t typically treat patient with long-term recommendations. So we see them come and go depending on if they hurt or not. It can lead to lulls, disappoitnment, and boredom if there’s not a steady stream of new patients coming through your pearly gates each and every month.

I have taken various courses over the years at Udemy so when I decided to create a course, I immediately thought Udemy would be a good place to start. 

While I’m still building the course and adding content every week, it’s live and ready to go for those interested in getting started. I’m putting the link to the course at this point in the show notes. You can go to chiropracticforward.com, go to Episodes and find this episode and just scroll till you find it. 

https://www.udemy.com/course/marketing-evidence-based-chiropractic/?referralCode=36A4D91C66B48300360B

Over the last two years or so, I’ve averaged almost 80 new patients every month as a solo practitioner. If you’re interested, I created, basically, my playbook for marketing and my thoughts on each topic or technique. I also have created downloads, checklists, and examples to show what my stuff looks like. 

Just go to udemy.com and do a search on Marketing An Evidence Based Chiropractic Practice and check it out. It will grow and expand in the coming months and if you get just one patient from the ideas shared in it, it paid for itself. Now imagine if you get a bunch….well then it’s priceless. udemy.com and the course is called Marketing and Evidence-based Chiropractic Practice.

Item #2

Item #2 is called “Coconut Oil’s Health Halo A Mirae, Clinical Trials Suggest” by Jennier Abbasi (Abassi J 2020)and published in JAMA on April 8, 2020….hot cakes, smokin’ hot cakes. 

This one is an article so let’s just get to the highlights. 

She starts by saying that clinic trials don’t support the public’s positive perception of coconut oil. She points to a study that was published in Circulation that found coconut oil actually increases low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (which is the bad kind of cholesterol) and offers no benefit for weight, blood glucose, or inflammation markers. 

She says coconut oil has been marketed as a miracle for about a decade and a 2016 New York Times survey showed 72% of Americans consider it a health product. This while on 37% of nutritionists felt it was beneficial when compared to other oils. 

What they’ve learned more recently include:

• Compared to nontropical vegetable oils, coconut oil significantly increased total cholesterol. 
• Coconut oil did not significantly affect triglycerides or markers of glycemia, inflammation, and body fat compared with others
• Researchers calculated that coconut oil use could translate to a 6% increase risk of major vascular events and a 5.4% increase in teh risk of coronary heart disease mortality. 

There’s much more to the article so I encourage you to find it and read it if you’re interested in coconut oil but in summary: Coconut oil should not be viewed as healthy oil for cardiovascular disease risk reduction and limiting coconut oil consumption because of its high saturated fat content is warranted and it offers no proven health benefits compared to other cooking oils and seems detrimental on important blood lipids. As such, the prudent approach would be to avoid it in comparison to other cooking oils”

Item #3

Alright here’s we arrive at the main event. This brand new article coming out on May 4, 2020….there’s a serious amount of sizzle on this sucker and not just because it’s brand new but also because a large number of chiropractors are going to call shenanigans on it. The topic of chiropractors helping boost immune function through spinal manipulative therapy has been such a hot topic on social media since this pandemic started that I won’t hardly get on and read a general chiropractic group and it’s posts. I won’t do it. My eyes start rolling out of my damn head so why intentionally punish myself? Honestly. 

This article is called “A united statement of the global chiropractic research community against the pseudoscientific claim that chiropractic care boosts immunity” and is authored by the biggest of the big chiropractic researchers that include Pierre Cote, Andre Bussieres, JD Cassidy….hello stroke research…Jan Hartvigsen, Greg Kawchuk, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Silvano Mior, Michael Schneider and more than 140 signatories. 

It was published in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies just a week or so ago as I mentioned. 

Background - As I said this pandemic has made chiropractors lose their minds. Including myself if I’m being honest. Not about the immune system. But about safety and keeping myself and my people and patients safe. 

Anyway, they say that during this time, the ICA posted reports claiming that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. These claims aren’t in line with the WHO and the World Federation of Chiropractic. 

The researchers reviewed the two reports posted by the ICA on their website on March 20th and the 28th. They explored the method used to develop the claim that SMT can boost the immune system and they discuss the scientific merit of the claim. They go on to explain why the claim lacks scientific credibility and is dangerous to the public. 

Get this; over 150 researchers from 11 countries reviewed and endorsed this article and response. 

Some of the more notable quotes include:

Advancing extraordinary claims without providing extraordinary evidence should raise significant concerns about the scientific validity of the ICA’s position. In their reports, the ICA claims that individuals who received chiropractic care during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were 51 to 91 times less likely to die than those who were treated by medical doctors.  These effect sizes are too large to be trustworthy and are a red flag of pseudoscience, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Using data from a 100-year-old non-published, non-randomized controlled trial to suggest that chiropractic adjustments reduces mortality from the flu is scientifically and socially irresponsible.

We consider that proclaiming the benefits of chiropractic adjustment/spinal manipulation on immunity during a pandemic is plainly irresponsible and demonstrates a lack of understanding of science, the coronavirus pandemic and public health risks.

By only citing basic science experiments, the ICA appear to have overlooked the WHO guidance on implementation research, which clearly states that basic science experiments do not provide relevant justification for implementation of a health intervention

We call on the ICA to explain why it does not adhere to internationally accepted standards of research implementation but instead rely on unconnected basic science studies when linking chiropractic care to immune system function.

Pseudoscience has the potential to mislead and misinform at any time; even more so in the midst of a pandemic when the public is vulnerable. The current coronavirus pandemic demands that we act responsibly by adopting sound public health practices as recommended

Their conclusion is that, in the ICA reports, they provided no valid clinical scientific evidence that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. Not only that but they call on political and regulatory forces to hold accountable those making the claims. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, belive it, count on it.

Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Key Takeaways

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The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few.

It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point:

At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints….

That’s Chiropractic!

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We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

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About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams - Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Abassi J (2020). "Coconut Oil's Health Halo a Mirage, Clinical Trials Suggest." JAMA 323(16): 1540-1541.

Heffler K, S. D., Subedi K, (2020). "Association of Early-Life Social and Digital Media Experiences With Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder-Like Symptoms." JAMA Pediatr.